Here are 5 gay republicans and their often controversial political beliefs

While the Republican Party has traditionally opposed LGBTQ+ civil rights, some gay people still affiliate with the conservative political party nonetheless in support of its economic, foreign, or other cultural and political positions, such as its general opposition to abortion, transgender rights, or COVID lockdown measures.

Gay Republicans aren’t a monolith — they hold a wide range of political beliefs that vary individually. But, in an attempt to better understand their views, methods, and social impact, we’ve examined the biographies of five high-profile gay Republicans who have made headlines over the past decade, including same-sex marriage advocate Ken Mehlman, former Log Cabin Republican leader Gregory T. Angelo, transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner, history-making Trump official Richard Grenell, and right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

Related:

Trump promises to fight for gay Republicans days after Biden signs marriage equality bill

Trump recently referred to LGBTQ+ people as “sickos” who “support the perverted sexualization of minor children.”

This small sampling doesn’t even begin to cover the numerous gay Republicans who have made significant changes to how society views conservatives and homosexuality. But they do give some insight into the diversity of gay Republicans and possibly even the common ground that they and non-conservatives may share.

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Gregory T. Angelo

Angelo served as executive director and president of the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) from 2013 to 2018. While the LCR didn’t endorse Donald Trump during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — citing the Republican party’s anti-LGBTQ+ national agenda and an uncertainty of what Trump would do as president — in 2017, he said that Trump was “the most pro-LGBT Republican president in history,” despite Trump’s many anti-LGBTQ+ policies. In 2020, Angelo served as the spokesman for the White House Office of Drug Control Policy under Trump.

In 2016, Angelo wrote an article opposing the homophobia of “radical Islam.” The article was criticized for not mentioning the large role that Christian homophobia plays in U.S. anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and for pushing “homonationalism,” that is, using the LGBTQ+ community to justify xenophobic views against other against people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and other countries.

Nonetheless, under Angelo’s leadership, the LCR opposed Trump’s rolling back of transgender public accommodations in public schools, and the group suggested policies to Republicans that would accommodate trans students while giving school districts flexibility on how to do so.

Angelo has opposed the Equality Act, federal legislation that would forbid anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, saying that it would violate Christians’ “religious freedom” to discriminate.

The LCR has been criticized for allying itself with an anti-LGBTQ+ political party while accomplishing very little to make that party more LGBTQ+-inclusive. Since Angelo’s departure, he has become head of the New Tolerance Campaign, a group that seeks to “confront intolerance double-standards” of socially progressive organizations. The LCR has increasingly opposed gender-affirming care for minors and since embraced antisemitic ambassadors who use anti-LGBTQ+ slurs.

Caitlyn Jenner

Jenner is a former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete who appeared in Village People’s 1980 musical film Can’t Stop the Music and guest-starred on numerous TV programs and game shows. After marrying Kris Kardashian in 1991, Jenner appeared from 2007 to 2021 appeared on the reality TV series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Jenner came out as trans in April 2015, leading to numerous transphobic jokes as well as honors for her celebrity visibility. She became the first-ever out trans cover model for the magazines Vanity Fair and Sports Illustrated.

“I have gotten more flak for being a conservative Republican than I have for being trans,” the transgender millionaire said. She claimed to vote for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, though that may have been a lie. In October 2018, she withdrew her support of Trump — saying he “relentlessly attacked” the trans community by rolling back protections for trans students and banning trans people from the U.S. military. However, in 2021, she said, “Obviously I would support” Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

During her barely existent 2021 campaign as a California gubernatorial candidate, she came out against allowing trans girls to participate in sports teams matching their gender identity. Jenner and other conservatives who share her view believe that pubertal changes give trans girls unfair physical advantages over their cisgender opponents and “erase” women’s hard-won victories in sports. Critics of this position point out that sexism and poor funding harm women’s sports far more than trans competitors.

She has attacked at least one trans athlete and celebrity by misgendering them. She has also claimed that the “radical left” (meaning Democrats) has “hijacked and politicized yet another minority group” by supporting trans people.

While Jenner is arguably the most famous trans woman in the world, some LGBTQ+ activists have criticized her for chasing headlines and encouraging transphobia while being out of touch with the lives of trans non-millionaires. It’s also doubtful whether she’s had any positive influence on the Republican Party, seeing as party leaders were too embarrassed to be seen with Jenner in public and have advocated for transphobic policies nationwide in recent years.

Ken Mehlman

A former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Mehlman worked as a campaign manager who helped President George W. Bush win a second term on his anti-gay marriage platform. Republicans motivated their base with Bush’s pledge to pass an anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment and multiple red states placing same-sex marriage bans on their ballots.

In August 2010, Mehlman announced that he was gay and that he wanted to become an advocate for marriage equality. He compiled a list of Republicans who he thought might support marriage equality and began trying to persuade others that same-sex marriage would strengthen the institute of marriage and promote families, both conservative values.

In 2013, Mehlman joined the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which spearheading the lawsuit against Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot measure that invalidated same-sex marriages in the state. He also launched a pro-marriage conservative organization called Project Right Side.

“Conservatives don’t need to change core convictions to embrace the growing support for equal rights for gay Americans,” Mehlman said. “It is sufficient to recognize the inherent conservatism in citizens’ desire to marry, to be judged on their work, and not to be singled out for higher taxes or bullying at school. These objectives can be achieved while also protecting religious liberty, as demonstrated by states enacting civil marriage with exemptions for religious institutions.”

He also signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage and hosted a star-studded New York City fundraiser to campaign for marriage equality.

At the time of his coming out, the New York Times wrote that he had become “the most prominent Republican official to come out.” While some reviled Mehlman for fomenting homophobia nationwide as a conservative activist, out gay screenwriter Dustin Lance Black welcomed Mehlman’s help in the gay marriage battle, saying, “As a victorious former presidential campaign manager and head of the Republican Party, Ken has the proven experience and expertise to help us communicate with people across each of the 50 states.”

His coming out and advocacy for marriage equality shows the necessity of conservative allies in the larger battle for LGBTQ+ rights.

Richard Grenell

Grenell was known for being a Fox News foreign-affairs commentator; his misogynist tweets criticizing the appearance of women such as Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Callista Gingrich, and Rachel Maddow; a U.S. State Department spokesperson to the United Nations under President George W. Bush; and running a consulting firm that accepted over $100,000 from the Magyar Foundation of North America to provide public relations support for Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Though Grenell initially described Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign as “unserious” and “dangerous,” he deleted all his social media criticisms of Trump and began praising him when Trump won the Republican nomination.

In 2018, when then-President Trump appointed him as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Grenell became the highest-ranking LGBTQ+ person in the Trump administration. German officials opposed Grenell’s ambassadorship and largely shunned him as a conservative meddler. When Trump named him the acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in 2020, Grenell became the first out gay man to hold a Cabinet-level position.

Although Grenell claimed in August 2020 that “President Trump is the most pro-gay president in American history,” nothing backs up that claim. During his time in the Trump administration, Grenell said he worked with Trump on a campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world, but the campaign seemingly accomplished nothing. Around the same time, Trump officials said it would violate “religious freedom” to pressure countries to repeal their anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

Since Trump’s re-election loss in 2020, Grenell has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was “stolen” due to an unprecedented nationwide conspiracy of voter fraud that only occurred in the states that Trump lost. He has also opposed the Equality Act, legislation that would provide federal LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination protections, claiming it would be an attack on religion.

While Grenell broke new ground for queer people in presidential administrations, he also showed its limitations. Yes, he attained high-profile positions, paving the way for other high-ranking gay officials like Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Grenell seemingly parrotted the views of the man who installed him, raising serious questions about his independence and autonomy.

Milo Yiannopoulos

Although Yiannopoulos was raised in Britain, he rose to prominence during the 2014 Gamergate harassment campaign against inclusive video games and journalist coverage. Over many years, he became known for his attacks on women, Black Lives Matter activists, transgender people, and Muslims.

From 2014 to 2017, he worked as a writer and editor at the American right-wing publication Breitbart News. In 2017, Buzzfeed News revealed that, while working for Breitbart, Yiannopoulos regularly solicited ideas from antisemites and neo-Nazis like Andrew Auernheimer, administrator of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer and pro-Nazi commentator Baked Alaska.

Yiannopoulos supported the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and was named as part of the “alt-lite” by the Anti-Defamation League, a nod towards his fomenting of hatred among the alt-right of racist Trump supporters. In 2016, Yiannopoulos said that some 13-year-olds are sexually and emotionally mature enough to consent to sex with adults and that he was grateful that a priest molested him as a child because it made him good at oral sex.

He defended these comments as “gallows humor” to deal with his sexual abuse, but he resigned from Breitbart News, had his memoir dropped by publisher Simon & Schuster, and was disinvited as a speaker for the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Though he married his husband that same year, in August 2019, he served as grand marshal for a “straight pride parade in Boston. By March 2021, Yiannopoulos declared himself an “ex-gay” and said his husband had been “demoted” to a “housemate.” He also said he believes that homosexuality is a sin and supports conversion therapy, a debunked form of psychological torture that purports to change people’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

In December 2020, Yiannopoulos denounced Trump, calling Trump “a selfish clown” and saying that he would dedicate “the rest of my life to the destruction of the Republican Party.” He claimed that he arranged an infamous November 2022 dinner between Trump, anti-Semitic rapper Ye West, and far-right commentator Nick Fuentes to “make Trump’s life miserable.” He also served as an intern for U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a congresswoman who is a rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ troll.

Some critics say that Yiannopoulos sarcastically makes inflammatory statements just to provoke outrage from his opponents. Others say that he has helped normalize and popularize bigoted views into the conservative fringe with the hopes of making such views mainstream. His recent fall from grace shows the dangers of aligning one’s self with such extreme views, whether one truly believes them or not.

Not all gay Republicans are inherently bad…

Some progressives, LGBTQ+ activists, and left-leaning allies have vilified all gay Republicans as self-loathing quislings who’ve aligned with oppressive power for their own benefit. But as more and more gay people come out, it’s increasingly likely that more gay Republicans will emerge with their own nuanced beliefs that don’t necessarily align with the Republicans’ official public policy platforms.

Some gay Republicans support traditionally “left-wing” policies and candidates while voicing support for other right-wing figures and causes. Others may become less open to hearing alternate points of view or even deeper entrenched in conservative tribalism if they’re instantly demonized as a closed-minded bigot.

Larger social change will depend on the ability of conservatives and progressives alike to engage in continual dialogue, open-mindedness, and graceful listening to understand how one approached their seemingly controversial beliefs and how these beliefs might change over time.

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